Mayor Luigi intensifies dengue drive

By Julit C. Jainar|September 02,2016 - 11:20 PM

The alarming increase of dengue cases in the first seven months of the year in Mandaue City has prompted Mayor Gabriel Luis “Luigi” Quisumbing to issue a health alert to all barangays and a stepping up of measures against dengue.

Quisumbing said he was alarmed when he found out that there had been dengue cases in Mandaue that were not reported to the City Health Office.

“It appears that based on our records, we have roughly about 170 plus cases of dengue (from January to July) in the city, but it appears that there are around 550 cases, which is, as you can imagine, quite a large discrepancy in the number of dengue cases reported between our own records and the records that have been given to us,” Quisumbing said.

He said the several text messages that he received from constituents asking for financial assistance for their hospitalization on dengue and the Health Department’s report identifying Mandaue City as one of the dengue hotspots in the region prompted him to check on the number of city’s dengue cases.

“I asked City Health officer (Dr. Edna Seno) to investigate, and she was aware of the problem. When she dug deeper, she was the one who find out nga dunay discrepancy between the number of cases reported and what seems to be the actual number of dengue cases in the city,” Quisumbing said.

He said they were still investigating why this happened.

Quisumbing said the barangays with the highest number of dengue cases in the city are Casili, Cubacub, and Labogon.

Yesterday, City Health workers informed barangay health workers and barangay officials of the increasing number of dengue cases in the city.

After the barangay advisories, Quisumbing said that an information drive would be conducted in the barangays then misting operations in areas identified to be dengue hotspots in the city.

“We will be tracing where these patients are based, and we will conduct more aggressive misting and education measures,” Quisumbing said.

“(It is) Not a calamity level yet but a ‘cause of concern’ which is why we need to issue a health advisory to inform the public that we have to be very cautious about our household hygiene,” Quisumbing added.

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